Apple granted patents for iTunes Store, Smart Cover, Time Machine

Apple has won 25 new patents, all of which were officially published by the US Patent and Trademark Office yesterday. The patents cover several Apple products and services, including Time Machine, the Smart Cover, the iTunes Store and the company’s high-street store display stands.

Apple has won 25 new patents, all of which were officially published by the US Patent and Trademark Office yesterday. The patents cover several Apple products and services, including Time Machine, the Smart Cover, the iTunes Store and the company’s high-street store display stands.

Patently Apple reports that Apple has been granted a second iTunes Store patent following last week’s win involving the iTunes Store’s interface. The second patent, filed in January 2008, covers “A content rental system includes one data store for storing rental content. The content rental system also includes a content server for transferring content to one viewing device based upon a received request. The content server is further configures to authorise the transfer of the content from the viewing device to another viewing device,” according to the patent’s abstract.

The patent filing describes: “With the ever-expanding use of the internet, movies and other types of video content may also be rented and downloaded electronically from internet websites. By accessing a website, a customer may select a movie of interest and provide payment for the rental (e.g., by providing a credit card number). Correspondingly, the video content of the movie may be streamed to a web browser executing on the customer's computer system and rendered on a display.”

Another of the 25 new patents won by Apple involves Time Machine, and is the fifth patent granted to the company to cover its backup software. The Time Machine patent was originally filed in June 2007, and Apple credits Senior Vice President of iPhone Software Scott Forstall among the inventors of the patent.

Apple was also granted a patent for its Smart Cover, a design aspect of the iMac, a new Apple Store Display Structure, the Newsstand icon, a power adaptor, an audio processing interface invloving the GarageBand app, and more.